Traditional fantasy roleplaying games

Light quantity

Playing yesterday evening using the Hazard System led me to think about light resources again. On paper, I have something about coverage where the number of light sources needed depends on the size of the party (a candle provides coverage for one party member and a torch or lantern provides coverage for 3 party members). This works okay but I am not happy with the calculation step and though it is easy to do initially I also think the details about the number of light sources required tends to get forgotten as play progresses.

The Hazard System does a good job of making sure that illumination matters at a base level, but the model remains slightly too complex to easily handle the relation between party size and resources needed. It is, however, interesting for party size to deplete resources more quickly because that is both intuitive (one of the main downsides to increasing the number of people working on anything is the cost in resources) and provides an engaging tradeoff when players are deciding whether they want to recruit more retainers. This framing seems to naturally suggest a mechanical solution. Why not build the resource requirement into the abstract depletion step and not worry about details regarding which PC is holding what? First pass:

Light required = party size / 3, round up.

When the hazard die indicates light exhaustion, to maintain illumination consume a number of light resources equal to light required number. This can be torches, oil if characters have lanterns, etc. Zero light sources means total darkness. Less light sources remaining than light required but more than zero means some general penalty to actions that need illumination (and the next light exhaustion hazard die result = total darkness unless more light resources can be obtained before then).

(The writing could be improved, but I think that is mechanically coherent.)

This “light required” value is probably a good general measure of party size for other purposes as well at the “dungeon exploration” resolution of play. It could also be used for the number of rations that should be consumed when the Hazard Die indicates fatigue (as requiring each character to consume a full ration at this resolution of play is not entirely satisfying for me). This measure should probably have a more general name, though, if it is going to be used multiply. “Party magnitude” sounds overly technical. “Maintenance” rating perhaps?